case study: teenie tots, children’s book animation
Welcome to our not so tiny case study on Teenie Tots Childminding! We worked with local Dundee client Christine Brown who has the most zestful passion for working with and taking care of children in her hometown of Kirriemuir, Scotland.
what was the brief?
From experience, Christine had discovered that there were lots of books for kids who were about to start school but none for younger children who were starting at a new childminder, so she popped her thinking cap on and set about writing! The book, which reflects her business space and stars her husband as a child, deals with children’s nerves of anticipation and outlines what they can expect to see at a childminder to assuage their fears and show how much fun they can have. Having had her book illustrated by local artist Amy Halliday, Christine wanted to bring this book to life through the playful motion medium of animation… and we were very happy to oblige!
what did we create?
We created a 3-minute 30-second 2D animation in a cut-out style which compliments the captivating illustrations. In order to animate the material that was supplied, we set about creating different layers for each illustration and creating assets for the arms, legs, heads and bodies… just like puppets! We even created and animated individual mouth shapes and blended them with the illustrations to give the appearance of talking.
We tried using a voice over artist to read out the story, but once Christine to send a sample of her reading her own book, we were enchanted with how natural it sounded that we actually decided to use her in place of the voice-over artist. As you can hear, it comes from the heart and provides a warm and authentic feel to the story. After that we were able to start putting the story in motion and we could not be more pleased with the beautiful endearing and quirky outcome.
We were not the only ones who were visually delighted as our Teenie Tots animation has recently been recognised internationally and has won the silver prize for the Animated Short category in the Latitude Film Awards 2020 which we are all very chuffed about their Awards are presented to independent filmmakers that produce unique and compelling films, to honour, celebrate and award the best talent in the global filmmaking community.
what was our favourite part?
We thoroughly enjoyed working on a piece that was so whimsical and full of life. Working on kids content allows us to speak to our inner child and we can even pop in little ‘easter eggs’ such as subtle movements on ‘bunny Tam’.
The book contained lots of appealing onomatopoeia which meant we could have a lot of fun animating the sounds and syncing these up with the animation in the scene.
“It was a complete treasure to get to work on kid’s content and we had lots of fun thinking of cute, creative ways to use the illustrations to transition between the scenes. For example the mud splat transition which I have heard was one of Christine’s favourite parts”
what did the client think?
“Oh my goodness! This is aaaaaaamazing. I cannot thank you all enough, it’s just perfect. I honestly can’t believe how amazing it has turned out. Thank you again for all of your hard work, I really appreciate it”
“Salamandra.uk have recently animated my book – My First Day at Teenie Tots. I honestly have no words to describe how amazing it is and they really have put my visions into a reality. Christine MacKay and her team were very professional at all times and kept me up to date with everything they were doing with zoom calls and phone calls to make sure I was ok with everything. If you are looking to get anything at all animated or advertised these are your guys! I honestly cannot recommend them enough. Thank you again to all of the team for their hard work and I hope everyone loves it as much as I do”
”Salamandra.uk were very helpful to us and were able to produce an award-winning animation in very quick turnaround time. I would definitely recommend this company”